What makes the health funding and decision making argument so intense is that we find it so hard to think straight about it. We have a fantasy that if the government mandates coverage then everybody will get good coverage. Well, here’s one man who opts out completely from health insurance and his argument is very interesting.

In my view, the more people who can do what he is doing the better off our health care system would be. Literally everybody would save money and if he had to be the exception his status as an exception would be freely and prudently chosen.

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As I understand it, it’s not a crime to not get insurance, it just raises your taxes. Not paying your taxes is a crime, of course.

The author’s recommendation proceeds entirely on the basis of what is better for his own financial situation, which is likely in the upper class (he went to UC Berkeley, and has taught at Yale). That’s no way to decide public policy. A virtuous politician makes policy decisions with a view to the common good, not the interests of those better off than most.

In fact, his approach is directly contrary to any Christian politics. “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” With regard to wealth, there are only two viable Christian approaches that I can see: for the rich to sell all that they have and give it to the poor, or for the rich to hold their wealth in trust for the poor.

He also overlooks the economics of insurance. The more diversified and the larger the population of the insured is, the better insurance works. Mandatory insurance actually makes the system more economically efficient.

Finally, Payne’s view of medicine is highly questionable: using massage, acupuncture, and naturopathic medicine to treat cancer may be cheaper, but that’s because it doesn’t really work.